A most enjoyable puzzle from Teazel today. Some excellent Dad jokes (PATCHY, INHABIT, BULLETIN BOARD), and some really smooth surfaces. But I didn’t parse BEYOND THE PALE at all while doing the puzzle and am still not sure I’ve fully understood it.
I finished in a speedy (for me) 9:00. My first pass through the acrosses gave all but the unknown shrub and the two long phrases, and then the downs came reasonably quickly.
Definitions underlined, synonyms in round brackets, wordplay in square brackets and deletions in strikethrough. And, adopting something I’ve seen other bloggers do, anagram indicators are italicized in the clue and then the letters that are anagrammed are indicated (LIKE THIS)*.
| Across | |
| 1 | Shrub is a little dear, but useful (7) |
| ARBUTUS – Hidden in [a little] deAR BUT USeful.
Not a shrub I’d ever heard of, but pencilled in with the A and the T in place. And then when I tried to solve 2d and 4d starting with B and S respectively and managed to do so, it had to be. |
|
| 5 | Popular friend is about to blossom (2,3) |
| IN BUD – IN (popular) BUD (friend). | |
| 8 | Peremptorily announce one’s retirement as solicitor? (3,4,3,3) |
| LAY DOWN THE LAW – Double definition, the second a bit whimsical. | |
| 9 | Play area is mine, after polish (7) |
| SANDPIT – SAND (polish), PIT (mine). | |
| 10 | Charm for short period (5) |
| SPELL – Double definition. | |
| 11 | Varying in quality, like a much-mended garment (6) |
| PATCHY – A much-mended garment might have lots of patches, and so be “patchy”. | |
| 13 | Steamship’s touring lake in sequence (6) |
| SERIES – SS (steamship, as in S.S. Great Britain) containing [touring] ERIE. | |
| 15 | Mistakenly hears these can’t get off the ground (5) |
| RHEAS – (HEARS)*
Not a homophone clue, then. |
|
| 16 | Live, dressed as monk? (7) |
| INHABIT – monks wear habits. Ho ho. | |
| 19 | With which striker bestows congratulations? (4,2,3,4) |
| SLAP ON THE BACK – A cryptic definition: this is ‘striker’ in the sense of ‘one who hits’. | |
| 20 | Shame about the end of reverence and devoutness (5) |
| PIETY – PITY (shame) containing the last letter of [about the end of] reverencE.
What a lovely surface reading. |
|
| 21 | Deputy is not quite upright (5-2) |
| STAND-IN – Almost all of [not quite] STANDINg (upright). | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Geography book finally abridged (5) |
| ATLAS – AT LASt (finally) cut short [abridged]. | |
| 2 | Unacceptable apart from white? (6,3,4) |
| BEYOND THE PALE – BEYOND (apart from) + a mystery THE + WHITE (pale).
That’s ‘beyond’ as in ‘Beyond being tall, he brought nothing to the basketball team’. And ‘white’ for ‘pale’ works for un-suntanned white people, but I don’t see where ‘THE’ comes from at all. Looking forward to someone enlightening me in the comments. |
|
| 3 | Unproductive time up for body of soldiers (5) |
| TROOP – POOR (unproductive, like some land) + T for time, reversed [up, since this is a down clue]. | |
| 4 | Reason fool blocks authority (6) |
| SANITY – NIT (fool) inside [block] SAY (authority). | |
| 5 | Quickly I recollect Athens (2,5) |
| IN HASTE – I + (ATHENS)* | |
| 6 | Here notices why table is splintered? (8,5) |
| BULLETIN BOARD – Another double definition.
Bullet in board. ’nuff said. 😀 |
|
| 7 | Takes one’s time getting wife into awkward saddle (7) |
| DAWDLES – W for wife in (SADDLE)* | |
| 11 | Make coffee and drink: cheers! (5,2) |
| PERKS UP – PERK (make coffee) + SUP (drink).
Coffee percolators were largely displaced by drip filter machines in the 1970s, according to Mr Google. Luckily, my father-in-law is a percolator hold-out and I saw one in action last weekend. I remember my parents saying “The coffee is perking”, showing it as a verb. |
|
| 12 | All present for this subject? On the contrary (7) |
| HISTORY – History being the study of the past, not the present.
An unusual clue as the definition is in the middle. A reminder that all the “rules” are flexible. |
|
| 14 | Grimace as citrus stews (6) |
| RICTUS – (CITRUS)* | |
| 17 | Scavenger’s longing to be in hot area (5) |
| HYENA – YEN (longing) in H for hot and A for area. | |
| 18 | Among a number, approve memento (5) |
| TOKEN – OK (approve), inside [among] TEN (a number). | |
Hurrah I finished in 11:26 – was worried I wouldn’t know all of the phrases but I did! I enjoyed all of the puns.
Re: BEYOND THE PALE. I didn’t mind the missing ‘the’.
9:44. I had trouble seeing TROOP until I had the P at the end. I also assumed BREWS UP was the answer for a while but luckily saw the light eventually. I would think a THE in a solution would have to be accounted for so will await with interest the opinions of wiser heads !
RICTUS is one of those words I’d struggle to explain what it meant if pushed. In our island getaway, we use a Moka pot – a great advance on the cafetière, not only producing better tasting stuff but using significantly less coffee. 5:33
Not too hard. You have to take the whole phrase, apart from white, as being equivalent to beyond the pale – in other words, don’t lift and don’t separate! I never managed to parse bulletin board and history, but as the obvious answers in they went. I ended up stuck for nearly a minute on arbutus before seeing the obvious hidden.
Time: 9 minutes
That’s how I read BEYOND THE PALE too
I just bunged in BEYOND THE PALE without any eyebrow movement, but there does seem to be a problem. For the tenth time or so, there is no rule, or even ‘rule’ about where to put the definition, which can go anywhere the setter wants it to; only he’ll have a hard time putting it in the middle. 6:21
9.11 for me. FOsI IN BUD and a (tentative) ARBUTUS, LOI PERKS UP where I have a low-level beef about perk being used to describe the act of making coffee. Did this ever happen? The example citing Doofs the Elder describes what the coffee is doing, not what they’re doing. That aside an enjoyable puzzle, thanks both. I am now going to the cafe for a coffee because I can’t be bothered perking any myself.
I guess if you can stew beef and boil water you can.. Perk coffee. Doesn’t mean people aren’t going to look at you weirdly when you say it though 😂
When my family home moved from Leicester to a Surrey village in 1964, my mother invited a new neighbour round one afternoon, and asked whether she should ‘mash’ some tea. “Oh no, we brew tea in Surrey, we only mash potatoes”, came the reply.
Mash some tea. Wow, I never would have guessed. Thanks for the heads up!
12 minutes. I agree with vinyl1 about BEYOND THE PALE, don’t lift and separate.
6dn isn’t really a double definition. ‘Here notices’ is the one. The rest of the clue is more of a whimsical interpretation or a cryptic hint that relies on a different enumeration, BULLET IN BOARD (6,2,5).
No problem with ARBUTUS. There was a time when the teaching of songs in The National Songbook was common practice in many schools. The traditional Irish ballad My Love’s An Arbutus was one of these.
Those with access to BBC TV (or BBC iPlayer) may be interested in this new comedy drama series starting tonight. It’s in 6 parts but all episodes are available now on iPlayer: Ludwig: Puzzle setter John ‘Ludwig’ Taylor (David Mitchell) keeps the world at bay within grids. Outside his front door there are messy human beings, but at his desk there are anagrams to devise and cryptic clues to be solved with the gentle scrape of a fountain pen. However, the chaos of life is about to intrude dramatically when John’s sister-in-law Lucy reaches out with news that his identical twin, DCI James Taylor, has disappeared. Her plan? For John to assume his brother’s identity at the Cambridge police station where he’s posted to try to track him down.
Surely not by coincidence today’s Guardian puzzle is by ‘Ludwig’, a setter I don’t recall seeing before.
Thank you Jack, I’ll find out where I can stream it
V good review of this in the Guardian over the weekend, I’ll be tuning in.
I’ll have a go at the puzzle shortly.
EDIT: Looked at the puzzle for 10 mins, gave up. Not my kind of thing.
You’ll find it on BBC1 at 21:00
Mr SR and I had noticed this in the Radio Times (yes, that does date us. It does have a good crossword though). Definitely will be watching despite Mr SR’s shocking jealousy of DM as he is married to Mr SR’s second heart-throb (I’m assuming the first is me…).
All went smoothly enough until the SW corner where I had something of a brainfreeze and could not see RHEAS, could not parse HISTORY and was unsure about the use of perk as a synonym for brewing some coffee. But PERKS UP it had to be, which unlocked the quadrant. I rather like the parsing of HISTORY now it is explained to me.
15 minutes in all for a second Slow Day running. Many thanks Doofers for the blog.
Cedric
Perk is short for percolating. Never knew that! All green in 16.08.
Yes, and ‘perc’ is an alternative spelling, the one I’ve always used. I didn’t know it could be spelt PERK until today.
You and me both Jack! I blame the Americans (as usual).
I blame the fictional New York coffeehouse in ‘Friends’, Central Perk…
You beat me to it!
Likewise, I’ve always spelt it ‘perc’.
The usual high quality puzzle from Teazel, but I struggled with all four of the long answers (being convinced that 2d had to start with ‘buying’ didn’t help), which slowed me down somewhat.
Lots of contenders for COD but the surface of 7d means that DAWDLES is my favourite.
Started with IN BUD and finished with SLAP ON THE BACK in 9.04.
Thanks to doofers
Ditto for dawdles, and the mental image it provokes 😂
9:30
Took a while to see the NHO ARBUTUS (three checkers required) which gave me SANITY, and did not know the shortened PERK for percolation. Also forgot that a steamship is SS, only when I twigged did I think of anything other than L for lake – nothing else really should have slowed me down, but somehow did – more or less aligned with the Quitch though…
Thanks Doofenschmirtz and Teazel
A slow and steady 15:53. FOI 1dn ATLAS which gave me the starting point for the hidden NHO ARBUTUS at 1ac. Happy to PERK coffee, but not recently, and I might have spelled it PERC, but that wouldn’t have worked here. I had most trouble with RHEAS, which should have just gone straight in. Nice puzzle
This seemed to take a while with 3 clues we couldn’t get into and came back to at the end. With two of the checkers it took a ridiculous about of time to find rheas from hears but that unlocked perk and suddenly we were finished in a surprisingly great time of 1830.
Got 1a straight away as it was obviously a hidden and I have a distant memory of singing about an arbutus in a choir 25 years ago. Have since looked up My Love’s an Arbutus by Stanford.
Mrs RH was a solicitor and lay down the law is definitely something she did and does 😉
Thanks Teazel and Doofers
Finished and enjoyed, though was stupidly slow at times. FOI ATLAS. Then I thought of ARBUTUS but didn’t write it down because I couldn’t parse it. How dim! Am old enough to have own a percolator in days of yore. Liked various other PDMs – PERKS UP, BULLETIN BOARD, RHEAS, HISTORY, PIETY, BEYOND THE PALE.
LOI SERIES.
Thanks vm, Doofers.
Back to a straight two pass completion this morning, and currently 4th on the leaderboard behind 3 “big beasts” who I seldom beat. I just took my LOI at face value, though in retrospect it does translate rather strangely.
Although I flew through it, it was an enjoyable offering from Teazel (my COD alone was well worth the price of admission), and thanks Doofers for your blog.
FOI ARBUTUS
LOI BEYOND THE PALE
COD BULLETIN BOARD
TIME 3:21
My moan yesterday about being stuck on 08:30ish obviously did the trick, because I rattled through that in 06:04 for a sub-K and a Red Letter Day. Wooo-hoo!
The only real hold up was SANITY, where I could see it was going to be “nit” but got utterly fixated on “senate” and couldn’t get past it. Funny how you can get stuck on something you know is wrong!
Many thanks Teazel and Doofers.
10:06 (Sweyn Forkbeard invades SE England)
A straightforward solve. No issues with BEYOND THE PALE.
PERKS UP was my LOI, with a hesitation over whether it was PERC or PERK.
HISTORY my COD.
Thanks Teazel and Doofers
FFS. Exactly the same as yesterday. Overwrote the perfectly good INHABIT with RUCTUS, despite knowing what I wanted to type. 2 more errors to add to the score sheet.
On the easier end of the Teazel scale, but plenty of excellent clues. DAWDLE and BULLETIN BOARD being particularly good.
Missed the hidden ARBUTUS, but knew the shrub, or rather the excellent restaurant that used to be located on Frith Street. Didn’t quite know what was going on with HISTORY, but I suppose if I’d thought about it, I’d have got there. Biffed BEYOND THE PALE. LOI RHEAS.
5:08 BUT AGAIN.
You need to change your avatar for something more dextrous 😄
“Not too difficult” for some … a struggle here, and had to throw in the towel with three unsolved: BEYOND THE PALE, BULLETIN (NHO; BOARD was obvious) and PERKS (NHO in either context; “perk up!” = cheer up but not cheers!; to make coffee is conceivably perc but not PERK). Misery.
I also remembered My Love’s an Arbutus from school. Can’t understand why it took so long to see that HEARS was an anagram of RHEAS which unlocked 11D. Enjoyed the puns. Thanks Teazel and Doofers.
Just looked at the Quitch … the Lord Verlaine, current reigning Times Crossword Heavyweight Champion of the Worrrrrrrrrllddd, completed this puzzle in a not-so-shabby 01:42.
😳
One of the three “big beasts” I mentioned earlier, along with Mohn and Aphis99.
Found it harder than our blogger, especially having put PATS on the back at first and thought of ANYBODY rather than HISTORY, so lots of unravelling ensued. NHO ARBUTUS but looked it up. Biffed BEYOND THE PALE . LOI RHEAS – didn’t see the anagram till the very end. More time consuming than necessary!
Quite pleased with my 17:41 as I usually find Teazel difficult. Never knowingly heard of ARBUTUS, but I managed to pencil it in straight away as it seemed likely. Only vaguely heard of RICTUS. Plenty of great clues, particularly BULLETIN BOARD, although I failed to parse it at the time. Thanks Teazel and Doofers.
6.20 but with a fat fingered LAT DOWN THE LAW. Drat! Thanks Teazel and Doofers.
DNF
Thought of PERKS UP but didn’t really believe it though was looking for a synonym of the other sort of cheers
Very slow otherwise as assumed B_Y_N_ had to be BUYING. Think Ive “missed” seeing “beyond” before
But an easy COD to LAYING DOWN THE LAW as my laptop is being collected tomorrow and I can start properly indulging my crossword and other hobby related interests 🙂
Congratulations!
DNF x 4. My LOI was BULLETIN BOARD but I failed on ARBUTUS (missed the hidden which would have aided the next two), BEYOND THE PALE and SANITY. I would never have solved PERKS UP/cheers but then I don’t make or drink coffee.
What a rewarding 18 minutes! RHEAS and PERKS UP were my last two in, and took a good 3 minutes, the remainder had gone in often instinctively, with parsing immediately afterwards. 2d did look like BUYING for a while, until the phrase hit me. Paling is of course fencing and anyone not within a fenced or fortified area was ‘beyond the pale’ – I think the phrase is mediaeval in origin. Apart from white seems to suggest that those beyond the pale were not white, which isn’t quite the case! My lol moment was BULLET IN BOARD – lovely double definition. Thanks Teazel and Doof for excellent blog
Think I understand what is meant by lifting and separating being unacceptable in explaining the missing ‘the’; if I have then it would fit with my parsing which is that it is acceptable to refer to white as being ‘beyond the pale (colour)’ as in whiter than pale.
Definitely sitting in a comfy chair in the SCC common room with a freshly perc’d Columbian. Got held up on history and my time was shot to pieces by the bullet in board…
perks up! to Teazel and Doofs
Yes, there are shades of pale culminating in white. Didn’t somebody write a song about this?
😂 back into old/new pop/rock debate territory…. Wasn’t Adele or Blur…
Procul Harum cribbed from J S Bach
The phrase “beyond the pale” comes from “pale,” meaning a boundary or enclosed area, derived from the Latin palus (stake). It refers to crossing limits of acceptable behavior or standards.
Historically, it relates to:
1. The English Pale in Ireland, a region under English control. Being outside “the Pale” implied entering uncivilized or unsafe areas.
2. The Pale of Settlement in Russia, where Jews were restricted to live. “Beyond the Pale” indicated living outside legal boundaries.
Today, it means something unacceptable or improper.
Thanks for elucidating!
17m
Great puzzle but no slap on the back for the time.
Liked patchy, inhabit, lay down the law, rheas, history amongst others.
Yet another increasingly unenjoyable slog for me, I’m afraid. I gave up after 54 minutes, having failed to find the NHO shrub (ARBUTUS). Even Mrs Random, an avid and quite expert gardener, hadn’t heard of it. I interpreted ‘a little …’ in the clue as a curtailment, not a hidden.
Before that, I had struggled for long periods, e.g. with PERKS UP, PATCHY, RHEAS, SANITY, the NHO RICTUS, …. in fact, almost the entire LHS.
I am finding the level of difficulty of these QCs too erratic and I can’t rely on them being a pleasurable 25-35 minutes challenge over a cup of coffee any more. Therefore, I may back away for a while to rekindle my enthusiasm and will probably set a strict cut-off time (40 minutes, say?) when/if I come back.
Thanks to Teazel and, of course to Doofers.
Hang in there SRC – just tell yourself that they’re harder than they used to be, adjust your expectations, pour an extra strong coffee and strap yourself in!
Good advice, which I, certainly, plan to take.
After having to enter a number of words I had never heard of (RICTUS, RHEAS, ARBITUS) I convinced myself that this puzzle was full of words that were new to me and i put in “SENITE” as an alternate spelling of senate with SEE = diocese = authority and convinced myself that would work too.
I was not surprised to find pink squares, but I was surprised to find only one set of pink squares.
I found this significantly harder than yesterdays puzzle so was surprised by the qitch score.
I agree with the parsing of “BEYOND THE PALE” posed by vinyl1
I personally dont think 12D has the definition in the centre of the clue, rather the whole thing is a cryptic definition. I also think that the rule should not be stated as “the definition is always at one end of the clue”, but rather that the wordplay and definition occupy one side of the clue each, with scope for linking words to be used around those 2 elements
I flirted with SENITE too, on the same “see could = authority” reasoning
Bucking the trend again, this time by finding today’s QC rather tricky. Much slower than yesterday which felt a breeze by comparison. Main hold-ups were not spotting the hidden in LOI and NHO ARBUTUS, and being generally dim solving BEYOND THE PALE, ATLAS (I mean really 🤪) and PERKS UP (lovely, when solved). COD has to go to BULLETIN BOARD which jumped out of the page. Also liked RICTUS just for reminding me this word exists. Lovely puzzle Teazel, and many thanks to D.
Great fun, and well short of the SCC. Once I did 8A for a living, but that is now 12D and I’ve recovered my 4D. Like others, RHEAS took a while until I realised I wasn’t looking for a homophone – neat.
DNF in half an hour. With ten minutes on the hidden ARBUTUS and another ten failing to get BEYOND THE PALE. Like Plett11 I was convinced it started BUYING and I couldn’t get past it. I thought PERKS UP and RHEAS were quite tough too. Thanks Doofers and Teazel.
All correct, but very slow on the left hand side. I hadn’t heard of the shrub before, and needed the down clues to realise it was a nicely disguised hidden.
I think the HISTORY clue is a cryptic definition style clue.
Thanks to blogger and setter.
Now back to the rather chewy 15×15. I am not on the wavelength
Only 1 minute quicker than yesterday at 30 minutes despite this being held to be much easier. I was held up for a long time by my last 4: 19ac, 2dn, 1ac and 4dn. After a lengthy pause I saw SLAP ON THE BACK and for some reason the extra crosser, albeit only a vowel, led immedately to BEYOND THE PALE. There then followed a somewhat shorter pause before I spotted the hidden and nho ARBUTUS all of which resulted in SANITY (I wish!). A mixture of clues I thought with some excellent ones and some which, imo, were somewhat unsatisfactory (HISTORY and BEYOND THE PALE).
FOI – 5ac IN BUD
LOI – 4dn SANITY
CODs – 8ac LAY DOWN THE LAW and 6dn BULLETIN BOARD
Thanks to Teazel and Doofers
Another one that we found tricky to finish off though thankfully, at 15:44, it came together much more quickly than yesterday’s. Our problem was primarily with the SW corner where we needed to see PATCHY first (itself freed up by a rather slow penny drop for 2d) before getting anywhere close to POI RHEAS and LOI PERKS UP. With RHEAS it was simply a case of missing ‘mistakenly’ as an anagram indicator. With PERKS UP we were misled by the exclamation mark after ‘Cheers’ into looking for phrases like ‘bottoms up’. Approval for the misdirection! BULLETIN BOARD made us smile. Thanks Doofers and Teazel.
Very late getting to this today as I’m taking a restful few days down in Brighton. Spending much of the morning going round the incredibly ornate Brighton Pavilion. A masterpiece of overstatement by John Nash for his boss George IV.
Perhaps a later solve doesn’t suit as I was outside target at 11.23, but I did think it was maybe a little tougher than average.
Beyond the Pale refers to a rather grim bit of betrayal in Ireland back in history when the English came out from their garrison and massacred a local population – it is well recounted in that excellent BBC series ‘This Sceptred Isle’ – I’m sure that it can be found on-line if you haven’t had the pleasure of listening to the CD set, but can’t remember the date offhand tho….
Lots of great clues today but my COD has to go to 1d for simple economy of style.
44:27
I’m getting slower. That’s 2 days in a row I’ve notched up record slow times. Maybe I’m just getting more patient?
NHO ARBUTUS and failed to parse either HISTORY or LOI SLAP ON THE BACK.
And does sand really mean polish? Try polishing your car with sandpaper.
Slow finish. Like many Perks Up and Rheas came slowly, despite me mentally listing all flightless birds. Thanks Doof and Teazel
Please bloggers. You sand wood etc. before polishing.
Try sanding your car next time 🥴
Enjoyed this, no weird GK to fret over and some very good clues. Maybe LAY DOWN THE LAW was too quick to come by but that was made up for by BEYOND THE PALE and BULLETIN BOARD (haha!) which eluded me almost to the end. Liked HISTORY best. 16:35 for a relatively quick solve.
Thanks to Teazel and Doof!
Disastrous, with blanks over the board. NHO ARBUTUS, which looks so unlikely as a word, and therefore never in the running. Forgot about RHEAS. Never heard coffee being called PERK etc.
But looking forward to Ludwig, David Mitchell was brilliant in Upstart Crow.
I am down, depressed, disillusioned and defeated.
41 minutes for a QC the blogger suggested was straightforward. Where am I going wrong?
I have tried so hard to master this and yet I go backwards rather than forwards! I have spent hour after hour on the big crossword in an attempt to improve, but it has had the opposite effect.
103 minutes so far this week. That is horrendous, even by my pathetically low standards.
I spent 90 minutes on the big crossword and got just 15 clues. You must find it hilarious that I am so utterly useless!
I haven’t read any other comments as it would just make me feel worse. I’m sure most of you found it a walk in the park as usual. Being at the back of the field day after day is demoralising beyond belief.
PS Having now read the blog for the big crossword, my self-esteem has taken another blow. So many basic errors and misreads. In 4 years here I have learned nothing! Don’t know where I go from here.
Don’t reply. There’s nothing anyone can say to make me feel any better about today’s abject performance. ☹️
I can make you feel better! I have been trying to improve my performance for … are you ready … 4 years! I’ve learned SO much from this marvellous site and all the explanations of every single clue. However … in 4 years of trying I have only ever completed 2 puzzles. And one of those was full of anagrams and I’m great at recognising those! Even better at solving them with help of anagram solver dot com – to save time and agony! So there. Feel better now GaryA?!
Thanks. I appreciate your comments but I still feel unhappy. The harder I try to improve, and the more time I spend on cryptics, the worse I get! That makes no sense to me. It feels unfair.
I feel your pain. But for me – every clue I solve makes me thrilled! Must get out more!
Gary, I’m a QC solver of at least 7 years and I DNF with 4 answers missing! Not everyone found this easy, there are plenty of commenters like us.
Thanks 😊
27 mins…
A good puzzle, although I took far too long on 1ac “Arbutus”, failing to see the hidden word until the last moment.
FOI – 1dn “Atlas”
LOI – 1ac “Arbutus”
COD – 11dn “Perks Up”
Thanks as usual!
Just before Bannister broke 4 mins he was stale; went rock climbing, came back and smashed it. Not suggesting not doing cryptics but stop reading this site for a week or two maybe?
1 min 40, I ask you!
I failed to finish the 15×15 for over four years. Now I fail about 3 a month and average 28 mins.
Dont understand what changed it just did last year.
Thanks Edric
The clue for “BEYOND THE PALE” was horrific IMHO. Made me shudder.
28:02 – just adding to get it to register on Quitch